The Best Steak-Eating Advice You Can Watch

We might have to get this woman sainted

For about the first 15,000 years of human history, steak has been pretty much the same. At some point it was invented, I guess, possibly in the form of slicing the things off living animals, as is still done in certain primitive societies today. Eventually they invented butchering. Then rotting, or "mortifying," which eventually turned into dry-aging. And that was about it. Am I forgetting anything? I don't think I am.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

But progress leaves no art behind. And steak, the most fundamental of foods, is now subject to its inexorable forward pressure. Look at Nick Solares' "year in steak" piece, recently published on Serious Eats. Solares writes a column called Steakcraft for the popular site, in which he (too) lovingly details the character, cut, and preparation of the city's best beefsteaks. Every secret of steak is there laid bare: the anointing with suet or clarified butter, the three-part multimedia cooks, the rise of the rib steak to its long-delayed preeminence, the deepening concentration of flavor from longer dry-aging, the domination of Creekstone beef by the powerful LaFrieda cartel. And the various methods and practices Solares gets into are all mere child's play compared with what is about to happen in Chicago, where Grant Achatz, the country's most far-seeing modernist, has taken up "Chicago steak" as the theme for his experimental Chicago restaurant Next.

And yet, inexplicably, I like steak less every year. I am not sure I understand why. The fact depresses and discourages me, and what's more I can't stop thinking about it. I am as preoccupied as a cuckold. I think it has something to do with coming up against the limits of steak. Steak is a paradox, a fingercuff that tightens around you as you pull it. It's only good when your brain shuts down. No rock star grown sick of copulating with starlets, or millionaire unmoved by a watch that can't run in space, could be in a more shameful pickle than a man who has to think about how to make steak better. Eventually, the line of progress will dead end; only wagyu rib cap, cooked directly on century-old elmwood and seasoned with the tears of orphans, will suffice for a carnivore's pleasure. I know, because I think about this stuff all the time. My latest quest is to find a way to to get browned flavor into every bite, and it is utterly ludicrous. I was in a bad place, steak-wise, after reading Nick's piece. But then I saw this:

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

I don't know about you, but this might be the most profoundly erotic video I have ever seen. Is it the sight of the tiny woman, devouring a giant steak? The unnatural voracity of her feeding? Her single-mindedness? Her bottomless appetite? I can't say, but all the power of the beef-eating experience came to me with a wallop when I watched this video, and continues to do so on repeated viewings, of which there have been a lot. The message, I think, is that hunger, not satiation, is what we look for in a steak, bone-deep hunger and the eye-popping sensation of being most truly ourselves. If you are not dying for steak, you shouldn't eat it at all; a veal chop is plenty good enough for you. We as a people are in some way unworthy of what we have accomplished as chefs and gluttons. I am shamed by this, but at least it points to a way out, a place where steak feeds the soul, and the method doesn't matter. Steak satori, in other words. I haven't gotten there yet, but I will. I swear it.

A Part of Hearst Digital Media
Esquire participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites.